


she has to know

by Omeganixtra



Series: Destiny Fictober 2019 [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Cayde's a dum-dum who doesn't realize he's in love, F/M, Fictober 2019, Guardian's too stupid to see it too, Idiots in Love, Mission went wrong, Pre-Relationship, getting hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-29 10:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20962571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omeganixtra/pseuds/Omeganixtra
Summary: “You’re my favorite, don’t tell anyone.”“Don’t worry, I won’t.”





	she has to know

**Author's Note:**

> day 3: "Now? Now you listen to me?"

The white, sterile hallways of the Tower’s medical facilities never fail to get shivers to run down Cayde’s spine.

Never.

There’s just something about them that always makes him shudder beneath his leathers and his wise-crackin’ and his metal. Somewhere beneath all of that, and even more, there’s a small part of him that _screams_ every single time that he has to make his way down there, for one reason or another.

First time was because of Andal.

Last time was because of Andal.

This time? This time it’s all because of Meera.

(“_You’re my favorite, don’t tell anyone” – “Don’t worry, I won’t”)_

She smiled. He remembers how she smiled when he reluctantly came to see her off, all feisty and more than ready to take on the entire world. How her armor gleamed in the too-bright light of the hangar’s lamps. How her Ghost butted against her cheek before she slipped on her helmet and drew up the hood of her cape. He remembers how warm her hand felt, even through the plasteel and sapphire wirings holding her gauntlets together. He remembers the small smiley stitched into her cloak near the right shoulder-fastener.

Now? Now she’s lying here in a hospital bed—without her gear, without her weapons without herGhostwithoutwithout_without_—in a seemingly endless sea of white and looking oh so small. Her Ghost lies right beside her pillow, lens a dull blue from the self-induced rest mode that it has put itself into.

Cayde just looks at her from the foot of the hospital bed, brow-plates furrowed and his eyes narrowed. His hand tightens around the metal bar and he feels the frame give. When he’ll remove it there will be dents in the metal, he knows it.

_“Mission went wrong.”_

_“She was in the wrong spot at the wrong time.”_

_“Hive got the best of us, won’t happen again, boss.”_

_“Too high of victory, we never saw it comin’.”_

_“We never thought to check the comms, it won’t happen again.”_

She’s pale. It’s normal for humans to be pale, and especially Meera, but this… this isn’t a normal ‘pale’. She looks like death barely warmed over, pasty white and only slightly grayer than the sheets wrapped around her.

“I told you, didn’t I?” he rasps. Sundance looks at him but her questioning chirp goes unanswered. He only has eyes for the Hunter in front of him. “I told you that this had been a bad idea.”

The mission should have been easy. For all intents and purposes it _was_ ridiculously easy.

Go to Mars, follow Bray’s directions to a newly discovered Hive nest and clear the parasites out before they had enough time to get too big of a foothold in the Bray facilities. Explosives optional, and of course the entire fireteam made landfall with just about a metric ton’s worth of firepower.

They’re Guardians, it’s what they fucking do.

Only, this time none of it went as planned.

_“She was in the wrong spot at the wrong time.”_

That sentence keeps churning inside his head, keeps making him want to scream and tear out nonexistent hair. Makes him want to wrap his hands around that fucking Titan who came back with her bleeding out

You don’t come out alright from the Hive getting their grubby, probably-undoubtedly-infected claws on you with only bruises and a truly fucking impressive shiner to show for it. And she hadn’t. She had bled and oozed some horribly unnerving dark liquids and her fireteam had been horrified for the entire trip back to Earth.

Cayde can say what he wants about Clovis Bray and all the fuckery that the damn corporation has ever done to him and all the other Exos, but they sure have impressive firepower when needing to pave a way through an alien infestation, he’ll give them _that_.

The sound of sheets rustling slightly reaches his audio units and his eyes snap up to lock onto Meera’s tired, confused face.

“Hey…”

“Hey,” he manages to get out and immediately moves so he’s sitting on his haunches beside her, instead of looming like some weird, crazy stalker. His hand curls around hers and squeezes gently. “Welcome back to the land of the living, hero.”

“How… how long was I out?”

“Couple’a days,” he murmurs. “Just long enough for your Warlock to start bawling like a little baby.”

“He’s Awoken, they don’t bawl. They shed dignity tears.”

Her paltry attempt at a joke falls completely flat when a violent cough wrecks through her body and makes her seize when the motions jerk at her wounds. He helps her sit up as carefully as he can, winces when he sees spots of dark red begin to spread on the front of her hospital-issued gown.

“Ah, ah—_careful_!”

He only lets go of her long enough to snag one of the pillows from the bed beside hers and throws it behind her so she can rest her back against them. The coughing stops after a while, but it’s just long enough for Cayde to glance once or twice at the door leading out of the sickroom.

“Cayde, I’m sorry.”

She’s looking down at her sheets. One of her hands, probably one of the few places where she’s not swaddled in bandages, tightens in the linen. The other hesitantly tangles with Cayde’s fingers.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. What happened was an accident.”

“I’ve been a Guardian long enough to know that you don’t pull out your Ghost in the middle of a fucking crossfire,” she rasps out, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Meera,” Cayde cuts in and yanks both of her hands into his. “What happened was an accident. They happen. Missions don’t always go as planned, especially not when the Hive are cooking up their weird fucking voodoo shit in those nests.”

“I didn’t think. I just—fuck, they were _this_ close to getting a hold of Ghost and I just acted.”

“A silver lining here might just be that both of you made it out.”

She laughs, mirthlessly. “I never should have accepted. It would never have happened.”

“Now? Now you listen to me?”

Cayde’s own attempt at a joke falls as flat as the one she tried earlier. She looks at him with tears in her eyes and blood still spreading from her wounds to her stomach.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, I promise.”

“Just—” he cuts himself off this time, feels the uncomfortable sizzle of all those unsaid emotions simmer just below the waterline. “Be more careful, yeah? Can’t have my favorite Guardian dying on me now, can I?”

She knows. He knows that she knows. She has to know by now, has to know that there aren’t many things he wouldn’t do for her. Hell, if she asked for the Moon, he’d bring it to her on a fucking silver platter with garnish on top and a pilfered bottle of the City’s finest liquor beneath his arm.

“No,” she smiles. “‘Course not, boss.”

He’ll do anything for her, for that smile. All it’ll take from her end in return is being careful out there.


End file.
